The Listening Service

Tom Service looks at complexity in music. From Bach fugues to contemporary pop production, musicians and composers love to elaborate ideas to the limits of their imaginations. But when we listen, we only have one chance to hear all that's going on in their music. According to physicist Marvin Minsky, the human brain can only register a maximum of three different musical ideas going on at the same...

Why do we seem to love music from the day we're born? Are we born musical or do we learn it along the way? Whether it's melodies by Mozart, Queen, nursery rhymes or Baby Shark, music seems to captivate our babies - but what is it about these tunes that they're enjoying? Tom is joined by infant psychology expert Dr Laurel Trainor to find out how babies really interact with music - what are they hea...

From ancient Greek drama until today, music has often been an integral part of the theatre and it's where many concert hall staples - think Beethoven's Egmont... Schubert's Rosamunde... Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream.... Grieg's Peer Gynt - began life. But does the very act of collaboration make incidental music a sort of anaemic, second rate cousin to symphonies, string quartets and sona...

From Frankie Valli and Jeff Buckley to Andreas Scholl and Iestyn Davies - Tom Service celebrates the male singers hitting the high notes. Why do they do it? How do they do it? And why is it so uniquely thrilling a sound? And it's not about singing like a woman! With inside knowledge from countertenor Lawrence Zazzo.

Does practice make perfect? And what is perfect practice? Tom Service asks whether anyone can become a good musician by just putting in the hours. Pianist James Rhodes talks about the role practice plays in his life, and Professor Brooke Macnamara reveals the true role practice plays in performance.

What does the underground sound like? Beneath the earth lies a noisy vibrant place, from the explosive roar of a volcano erupting, the echoes of caverns down to the barely audible grinding of the earth's plates. All this noise has long inspired composers and musicians - from Stravinsky and Wagner to Howard Shore and Tom Waits, we burrow into the earth itself to uncover the musical treats that lie...

Tom Service considers the rise of Sound Art, commonly found in art galleries today, and wonders whether it is a new genre or simply music in an art space? He consults musician and sound artist Mark Fell, finds precedents in Wagner's operas, considers how a 16th-century choral work became a contemporary art installation, and celebrates the American performance artist Laurie Anderson who accidentall...

Today, 'amateur' has become a byword for sloppiness and low standards. But for centuries amateurs were the bedrock of musical life and an essential and vitalising force for composers, providing not only a cohort of highly-accomplished performers and the most discerning audience but also a lucrative vein to be mined by music publishers. To find out how and why attitudes changed - and if they are st...

Tom looks at how modern audiences are hooked on silence in the concert hall. Citing a recent incident where the rustling of a sweet wrapper by an audience member in Malmo created a ruckus so powerful that it spilled spectacularly into a violent brawl, Tom will examine why silence is considered so important and noise so abhorrent in classical concerts.

Music where the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many - but also where the many can become one... Tom Service looks at music performed solo or in unison. What is happening in music where there is no harmony? And how can a single musical line build a sense of community?

LET'S GET ANGRY! Music’s power to express and exorcise anger has taken composers, performers, and listeners, to the Dark Side of music’s profoundly emotional powers. How do you make the sounds of anger? We’ll scream like heavy metal virtuosos and operatic divas, we’ll explore the harmonies of anger through the sounds of the angriest classical music over the centuries, and we’ll hear what happens i...

Even today, some music lovers will nod knowingly when they hear Brahms's comparison of Anton Bruckner's epic symphonies with a nightmare-scary giant snake that kills its victims in the inescapable embrace of its crushing coils. Poor Bruckner, ever the easy target of sneering critics. At once childishly obsessive and intensely spiritual, ultra-sophisticated musician and naive country bumpkin: even...

It's huge, it's awkward, it's difficult to play, and while it’s totally pivotal to the musical spectrum, it's rarely talked about. It's the epitome of the elephant in the room, and yet we'll discover why it is possibly the most underrated instrument in the orchestra. Tom Service talks about the history and development of the largest and lowest pitched orchestral string instrument, and hears how it...

Can you hear 'masculine' and 'feminine' in music? And how have these concepts had an impact on music and how people have heard it over the centuries? With Tom Service.

Tom Service dispenses Style Counsel - what are the different eras in music history, and how can you tell them from each other? How did they come about and grow and change? And as Radio 3 is about to launch its New Year New Music season, is there an overarching distinguishing style in music today? Tom is joined by composer and writer Neil Brand at the piano for some answers.

What is a key? In western music, if all the intervals and possible chords in every scale in any major key are the same (and ditto for every scale and chord in every minor key), why do we need 12 major keys and 12 minor ones? What have keys meant to composers down the centuries and has that changed? Are keys now so last-century (or even before that)? What even is a key? Why is the Pythagorean Comma...

Tom Service delves into the dark side of Franz Schubert. What can we hear in his music? A provincial composer who died young, described as looking like a "little mushroom", on the face of it Franz Schubert doesn't seem a likely candidate for deep insight into the human condition. But appearances are very definitely deceptive, and some of his music can seem deceptively straightforward as well. Join...

Tom Service investigates the ostinato, a repeated phrase in music that can nag or hypnotise the listener (the word derives from the Italian for "stubborn "). From Ravel's Boléro to Donna Summer's "I Feel Love", the ostinato is everywhere in music - driving the crescendo of Rossini's William Tell overture, underpinning the primitive ritual dances of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring - but is it an accomp...

As BBC 2's epic history series Icons is underway, Tom Service takes a closer look at four icons of the classical music world: Maria Callas, Nigel Kennedy, Jacqueline du Pré, and Luciano Pavarotti. With the help of opera critic Anna Picard Tom asks whether these icons are born or whether they're made, and what factors (beyond great artistry and talent) are at play in the making of an icon.

Tom Service considers what makes a good song work - verse, chorus, a good tune and...? Is a pop song using fundamentally the same structure as an art song or lied? From the timeless pop of The Carpenters to the gigantic "song symphonies" of Gustav Mahler, Tom examines what you can do with a few verses, perhaps a chorus, and maybe a "middle eight". He's also joined by composer and pianist Richard S...

Think of The Nutcracker as a super-saccharine classic for the feel-good season? Think again. Is everything really all sweetness and light in the world of sugar-plum fairy? No! But don't let the tale's dark undertones spoil your enjoyment of the wonderful music. Tom Service tears the gaudy wrapping paper from Tchaikovsky's balletic masterpiece to remind us you don't always get what you want. Behind...

Tom Service on the mystery, magic and music associated with bells For thousands of years human life has been accompanied by the sound of bells - calls to prayer, driving away evil spirits, marking the hours and seasons of life - births, marriages, deaths, alarm bells, peace bells, sleigh bells and Christmas bells. In a programme first broadcast in 2018, Tom looks at the meaning and magic of the so...

With the help of violinist Pekka Kuusisto Tom Service explores the concerto from Vivaldi in the early 18th century to today's composers. How has the idea of the concerto evolved over three centuries and what are the challenges for the soloist, walking the tightrope of virtuosity, sandwiched between orchestral colleagues and expectant audience? David Papp (producer)

What are the most extreme pieces of classical music ever written? And is today's shock-of-the-new tomorrow's old-hat? Tom Service looks some of the longest, the most apocalyptic, the weirdest and the most expensive music ever written - what were the composers up to, exactly? And where do we go from here?

From medieval English music to the Everly Brothers - what is it about the musical interval of the third that sounds so attractive? Why does a major third tend to feel positive, and a minor third tend to feel sad? Nature or nurture? And what about their dark cousin, the tritone - the so-called "Devil in Music" - what on earth can be that sinister about a couple of notes? Tom Service is joined by Dr...